Wessler: Impatience for BU fans honed to a razor edge

Will the Bradley Braves basketball team be any good next year? I frequently get asked that question, and my standard answer is, “Probably not.” Then I preach patience for the rebuilding project undertaken by Geno Ford, who this spring completed his first year as head coach. ...

I frequently get asked that question, and my standard answer is, “Probably not.” Then I preach patience for the rebuilding project undertaken by Geno Ford, who this spring completed his first year as head coach.

When I recently spoke those words to my father, though, his reply caught me by surprise. “I'm not sure I can be patient,” Dad said. “I’m getting old, and I’d like to see them be good again.”

Dad is 81. He was a Bradley student in 1950, when the Braves achieved a No. 1 national ranking, when they played in their first NCAA championship game and injected the campus and the City of Peoria with the drug of high expectations.

People of Dad’s era know what's possible, because they’ve seen it. Some are more realistic than others about the challenges facing programs like Bradley’s today: for starters, a private school with no football, high academic standards, located in a small television market. They don’t necessarily expect the Braves to contend for a national championship again.

But they do expect Bradley to play high quality basketball and compete for Missouri Valley Conference titles and NCAA tournament bids. And they don't think those accomplishments should be flukes. In other words, one MVC title in 24 years and one advancement to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 57 don’t cut it.

Hence, the fans’ impatience, which has been honed to a sharp edge by back-to-back finishes in the Valley basement.

And when I speak of fans’ impatience now, I'm not limiting the discussion to the octogenarians among us. I mean everyone: preteens who have never seen BU play a meaningful conference game in February, Bradley students who were toddlers when Anthony Parker lit up Stanford in the NCAA tournament, parents who grew up worshipping Roger Phegley and Hersey Hawkins, grandparents who wanted to be Chet “The Jet” Walker, great-grandparents who still swear by Squeaky Melchiorre, even the handful of surviving former classmates of Bradley’s Famous Five.

It's time for this program to start living up to the hype of its legitimately storied past, and to do it on a consistent basis. Past time.

That said, expect no miracles next season.

I know there’s disappointment within the fan base that Ford didn't yank a bunch of scholarships and recruit a mostly new team for next season. Some coaches do that. I'm glad Ford didn’t. Yes, I realize Division I college sports are primarily about winning, but Bradley remains first and foremost a university, where education is the No. 1 mission. Institutional integrity is important, and sometimes that means living with mistakes — even those made by your predecessor.

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Besides, even the basketball reincarnation of Larry Bird wouldn’t make Bradley a contender next season.

Quick fixes too often lead to more quick fixes. Ford needs to re-build this program for the long haul, with longer-term solutions. That's the path he took by signing a pair of transfer guards — Anthony Fields from Wake Forest and Omari Grier from Florida Atlantic — who will have three seasons to play when they become eligible in 2013. Fields and Grier will practice all next season, preparing their teammates for the future with much-needed daily competition.

Primarily, I want to see two things next season. First, I’m looking for significant individual improvement, especially in players who will be part of the team when the transfers — and the next recruiting class — become eligible. Second, I want to see a team committed to defense, rebounding and unselfish offensive play. Those who don’t get on board can take a seat at the end of the bench and begin to mull their own transfers out, no matter how talented they might be.

Do that, and there should be good reasons to get excited about Bradley Braves basketball again.

But it's going to take a little time.

Dad smiled. He taught mechanical engineering at Bradley for 40 years. I learned at the dinner table to respect the process and not settle for shortcuts.

Patience will be rewarded, if you build the right way.

KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216. Read his Captain’s Blog at blogs.pjstar.com/wessler/